Thursday, June 19, 2008

While many people will be staying at home for summer vacation or touring the great parks that this country has to offer, my brood and I will be sampling the delights of Jellystone Park with Yogi Bear and Boo Boo too. Yes, the annual pilgrimage to this family friendly campground is about to begin: a solid week of frenetic days and sleepless nights; mini-golf and water hole; bugs and campfires; panning for fossils and face painting. The pain/pleasure will be shared by the in-laws: father, mother, sister, niece, and nephews. We usually get two side-by-side cabins and a camper pad and share meals and child watching duties. We take meals in common as well as water gun activities. I hate getting there, but I usually have a good time once I'm there. Now, I may need a vacation to recover from my vacation, but that's because I'm getting old ... ;-)

Friday, June 6, 2008

If you could name a city or place absolutely anything you wanted, what would you call it?

I like language and I sometimes think about how place names come about. I'm often surprised at the complete lack of originality that denizens of a particular place demonstrate in naming their town, city, whatever.

The #1 choice in the too-dumb-to-think-up-a-name category is: the exact same name as some old city. Examples: Rome, NY; Moscow, IN; Berlin, VA; Vienna, VA

The next most obvious choice is to stick the word "New" in front of some old beloved city. Gag. How boring: New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, etc.

Equally obvious is to stick: town, ton, burgh, city, ville, land, or polis on the end of some Noun.

Slightly more creative and a little more natural is, well, nature landmarks as a suffix:

ford

fort

field

plains

view

burgh

side

grove

wood

way

And then the ever-popular adjective-noun place names:

Little/Big

White/Black/Red/Color

Failing that, places seem to get named for its founder or famous person: (Lord) Fairfax, (John Foster) Dulles, San Francisco (Saint Francis).

with the suffix -au, -aue (related to rivers or water), see German words Au or Aue. This meaning of -au (earlier spelling ow, owe, ouwe) describes settlements at rivers, creeks. Example: Passau, a town Aue, rivers named Aue.